


The Road Warriors

by msermesth



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Ends where IW begins, Found Family, Gen, IW SPOILERS, Minor Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Missing Scene, POV Sam Wilson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-17 12:21:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14832171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msermesth/pseuds/msermesth
Summary: It wasn't pretty, but somehow the four of them managed to make it through two years on the run.





	The Road Warriors

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is dedicated to my favorite found family of fugitives. I got a little obsessed with the idea of the these four living together and wanted to give some more love to Sam.
> 
> I used the comics as inspiration for some of Sam's background.
> 
> There is some minor Steve/Tony here, because I'm _me_. However, it's not the focus of the fic.
> 
> Thanks to [athletiger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/athletiger/) and [Kasey](http://yngvolkayno.tumblr.com/) for the very helpful betawork.

**Day 20**

_This… this is tough_ , Sam thought as he sat next to Steve and tried to figure out what to say to lighten the mood. Sam settled on remarking, “You know, you can buy razors here.”

Steve shrugged. “It’s a disguise, right?”

“Sunglasses and a hat are a disguise. This is commitment to an aesthetic,” Sam said. “It’s just--”

“You’re still built like Captain America,” Wanda finished. “You’re not fooling anyone.”

Steve’s shoulders tightened and they didn’t let go even when his eyes find Natasha in the crowd. They had been sitting in a coffee shop on the coast of Nicaragua for the last two hours waiting for her to show up, and it had been a _long_ two hours given that Sam had been stuck with the two sulkiest people he had ever had to share an air conditioning-free hotel room with.

They were lucky enough to have air conditioning in this coffee shop, but Steve was still regularly wiping his forehead free of sweat. Sam wasn’t sure if it was the serum or Steve had always been that way, but Sam had never met a man who perspired more than Steve Rogers and he could have gone longer in his life without knowing that fact.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Natasha said and sat down on the last free chair at their table.

Wanda nodded at Nat’s blonde hair. “That’s a better disguise.”

Nat’s smile was strained but she still laughed. “I like the beard. Goes well with the backpacker vibe.”

“Thank you,” Steve responded with enough of a bite that Sam could still see he hadn’t completely lost his sense of humor.

“What do you think, Nat? Have a little wanderlust? Want to take a gap year and see the sights with us?” Sam said, and made sure his voice was sarcastic enough that no one missed it.

“It’s going to be a lot of fun.” The way Wanda said it, Sam could tell she thought the opposite.

Steve, of course, had to ruin the mood. “We’re going to have a lot of work to do.”

Natasha nodded and took a drink from Sam’s paper coffee cup. He tried to look offended, but she only smiled fondly. “I’ve been working all my life. At least this way I might get to spend some time on the beach.”

They were all quiet for a second and it felt like they had cemented something final.

“I’m sure you heard about Clint and Scott,” Steve said after the silence really settled in.

Natasha shrugged. “It’s for the best.”

“It was getting crowded,” Wanda said and her voice had enough disdain that Sam was not entirely sure if she was putting on an act or not. “Too many men.”

“Sounds awful,” Natasha responded, sincerely. Steve’s mouth quirked up, just at the edge. It was the first time Sam had seen him smile since he left the Raft and he was glad Nat was back with them. “What’s the plan?”

“There are things the Avengers can’t do anymore, and that’s where we come in. If Tony and his team can’t get clearance, we go in.” Steve’s delivery was steady, but not rehearsed. This was Captain America talking. Or whatever Steve was calling this side of himself these days.

“So we’re going to be coordinating with Tony?” Natasha asked.

“Do we have a way to contact them?” Wanda sounded unusually invested in the answer to that question.

Steve looked somewhere beyond Nat’s shoulder.

“Really?” Sam asked, because he was under the impression that Steve and Tony did not leave part as friends. Or part as anything else, really. His best reference for Steve’s behavior was the time Bianca broke up with him in college and then refused to answer any of his phone calls. Which is to say, it was _bad_.

“We won’t be coordinating with them,” Steve explained, “But Tony has a way, if he needs us.”

“You didn’t…” Sam started, because now he knew what Steve did and they _talked_ about this.

“What. Did. You. Do?” Nat growled.

Steve looked just scared enough that Sam knew he has doubts.

“You _did_ …you sent the letter.”

Wanda’s eyes looked as if they would light Steve’s face up in red fire. “You were supposed to burn it!”

“Burn what?” Natasha had found her cool again, but that only made her scarier.

Sam slid a hand over his face and took a couple deep breaths before explaining, “These two,” Sam gestured to Steve and Wanda “--had some things they wanted to get off their chest. So they wrote some letters and agreed to burn them.” Between Steve, Wanda, and Scott, the hotel sink was full of paper ash that night. At least Clint broke a couple of local laws and deactivated the fire alarm.

“I did burn it.” Steve shrugged. “I wrote another one.”

Natasha caught on. “And this one you sent…to Tony.” Steve nodded and she let out whatever air she’d been holding in. “And?” she added, suspiciously.

“A phone.”

Wanda looked very dangerous at the moment. Sam caught Nat’s eye and they shared a moment of unspoken frustration.

“I wish you didn’t do that…” Nat mumbled.

“We need a way to--”

“There were other ways,” Nat cut him off to say. She sighed, tilted her head up, and watched the clouds drift by. “I was going to find other ways. But this…this is the situation.”

“We’ll roll with it,” Sam said and he was pretty sure it was approaching something like reassuring.

 

* * *

 

**Day 127**

Sun filtered through threadbare curtains, highlighting every speck of dust in the hotel room. They were staying above a bar in London, the cheapest they could find while Natasha followed up with a few of her contacts. They may have had to share it with everyone else staying there, but at least it had a hot shower.

That shower was what motivated Sam to get out of the cot he was sleeping on and stretch his arms as far as he could. His back popped, satisfyingly enough, and he was ready to begin another day of waiting around for something to happen. It wasn’t always like this--some weeks they barely slept, they were so busy, but then everything would slow down or they would have to pretend to be spies, and it was awful. The waiting had always been Sam’s least favorite part of being a soldier for a reason.

“Sleep well?” Natasha asked from the other side of the room where she was sitting, legs tucked under her, on the only bed. Sam cracked his neck to make a point about the quality of cots they were provided and she smiled. He was not surprised to see Wanda still asleep, because the girl _could_ _sleep_ , but he was confused to find Steve nowhere to be found. Given just how recognizable the man was, they all agreed that he was the most likely to be caught running errands. Steve hated it.

“Where?” Sam didn’t add much to the question. Some days, their world was small enough to just be the four of the them, and they could communicate with as few words as possible.

Natasha looked out the window and Sam knew then something was wrong. “I don’t know,” she said, and the way it came out of her mouth made Sam afraid. She picked up a small tablet next to her on the nightstand, and that was when Sam saw the telltale shape of an indestructible but dated flip phone. He didn’t ask about it and Natasha threw the tablet in explanation. “It’s a slow news day.”

 _This is bad_ , was Sam’s first thought, and he knew that wasn’t the proper way to respond to knowledge that someone was getting married, but the picture of Tony Stark on one knee with a ring in his hand filled Sam with instinctive concern. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t happy for Tony, even if they didn’t ever get to know each other.

His worry came from an entirely different place.

“I guess I shouldn’t expect an invitation,” he joked and Natasha’s lip quirked at his attempt at humor. “Steve knows, huh?”

“He was gone when I woke up, but given that he left this behind...” She picked up the flip phone. “I’m going to assume yes.”

Sam sat down on the bed next to her, trying to be as slow and deliberate as possible so as to not disturb Wanda and incur her wrath. He handed the smartphone back to Nat and noticed there was piece of paper ripped from a cheap paperback novel. Sam picked it up and read the note scratched into the margins-- _be back soon, please watch this for me_. He sighed. “Should we be worried?” he asked.

“No,” Natasha answered immediately but she took the note from his hand and studied it as if trying to find a secret message in the words. “Maybe.” She had aged years in the last few months. It felt like they all had.

Sam reached over her to pick up the flip phone. He weighed it in his hand, then tossed it a few times into the air, each time catching it before it hit the floor. He had one like this a decade before and it might as well have been actual lifetimes ago. Such a small thing. They had a Quinjet, but it was this dumb, silent phone that felt like their only connection to their old lives. “What are we going to do, Nat?

She shook her head. “What we’ve always done. We keep moving forward.”

The hallway outside rattled as someone very big stormed up the stairs, and that was the only warning they had that Steve was about to walk through the door. He looked worn, exhausted, _done_ , but he was walking with purpose. Sam threw the phone at him without waiting for him to ask for it, and Steve caught it on instinct before walking out the door again, leaving Sam and Natasha alone.

Sam heard the pipes bang against the wall and regretted not immediately taking that shower.

 

* * *

 

**Day 292**

Something woke Sam up--maybe it was the sound of someone moving in their sleep or the Quinjet settling around them. It didn’t matter. Since they’d been on the run, Sam hadn’t slept well. There is just too many things he needed to be aware of.

Instead of trying to fall back asleep, he lifted himself up and off the Quinjet’s makeshift cot (also a source of his less than stellar nights) and looked around to see what could be going on. There was a hatch just barely open to the side of him and it was letting in sounds of the jungle that they were hiding in. There were miles and miles and miles away from anyone right there, even if it meant that they had been eating meal kits that made Sam miss being in the Air Force. Some days it was just easier this way.

The open hatch was letting in humidity that was not all together unwanted in the dry air conditioning of the jet. Sam looked quickly to account for everyone and wasn’t particularly confused when he didn’t see Steve laying on his cot or sitting in the pilot's chair.

Sam shook Natasha awake. She reacted exactly how he expected by grabbing his wrist and twisting it just enough to make it clear she was serious about causing pain. That is, until she opened her eyes and saw Sam standing there above her. “Is everything okay?” she asked instead of telling him to leave her alone. They didn’t get to say those types of things anymore.

“Everything is just peachy,” Sam joked, hiding all of his concern.

“Steve’s gone,” Wanda said behind him instead of laughing. She was creepy like that sometimes. “He left an hour ago.”

“And you didn’t say anything?” Sam responded and turned around to look at her.

Wanda didn’t seem concerned. “The man deserves some time to himself.”

Natasha sat up, slowly, and Sam could tell the initial adrenaline rush from being woken up had wore off. “Alone time is dangerous,” It was concern, not anger, that was making her voice tight.

Sam nodded his head to the open door in a silent question. He agreed with Wanda on a basic level. They had been living far too close to each other to not need a little alone time. But Steve had a way of being a little reckless that concerned him in moments like this.

Natasha stood up in answer to what he was trying to decide and opened the hatch fully so that they could all easily slide out. Steve was easy to find, luckily, and Sam breathed a sigh of relief that they weren’t going to have to comb the thick jungle to find him. He was sitting on a large, wide log, wearing the black sweats he preferred to sleep in, and holding the Captain America uniform in his hands.

Steve looked up at the sounds of their steps and smiled the uneasy smile of someone who had been caught doing something they knew they shouldn't have done.

“What’s up?” Sam asked as he stepped forward and closer.

“Nothing,” Steve answered, and he folded up the uniform and set it aside.

Wanda saw something behind Steve and bent to pick it up from the brush. “What’s this?”

She wasn’t asking so much as drawing attention to it. They all knew what it was--the silver star that used to be on the center of Steve’s uniform.

Steve shrugged and he didn’t take it when Wanda offered it. “Eh. I didn’t need it anymore.”

Sam shared a concerned look with Natasha and she looked as bewildered as he felt. Wanda threw the star behind her and sat down next to Steve. “Why?”

Maybe Steve didn’t want to talk about it, maybe he just didn’t know how to explain it, but either way he stayed silent as he pulled up the folded uniform and let it unfurl in front of them. “It’s better this way,” Steve settled on saying after a little while and Sam had no idea how that can be true.

Wanda took the uniform from his hands and looked closely at it, clearly having her own internal conversation. “You should dye it black.”

Steve tilted his head and looked closely at the spot where the star used to lay. Sam saw the moment Steve looked between her and the outfit he wore for years and agreed.

Natasha saw it too, because she held her face in her hands and groaned.

 

* * *

 

**Day 553**

Steve led the way through the crowded market. Sam barely knew what city they were in, let alone where they were going, but Steve had some sort of internal GPS unit that always kept him where he needed to be. They bumped into people, honestly Sam wasn't sure how they wouldn’t, and Sam had to remind himself he missed civilization, even if at the moment he’d prefer a shower over shopping.

They stopped abruptly in front of a hole-in-the-wall bar advertising beer Sam had never heard of. “This is the place,” Steve said.

“Really, Steve? It’s eleven AM.” Sam tried to make it sound like a joke, but it didn’t come out that way. Maybe this was part of a mission he hadn’t been informed about, and he didn’t appreciate that.

“It’s five o’clock somewhere,” Steve quipped with enough effort that it felt like he was trying to go for a Jimmy Buffet-vibe, and that was just wrong coming from Steve’s mouth. There was no way the man could pull off a hawaiian shirt. “I’m not going in, anyway. This is for you.”

There were no windows to peer through, but Sam tried to look through the walls anyway. Sam had learned to live with the uneasy feeling that was sitting in his gut, but that didn’t mean it didn’t bother him. For a flash of a second he evaluated if the man in front of him really was Steve, but the concern passed as soon as it arrived.

“Wanda keeps taking these trips,” Steve began. “And I keeping thinking of the things and… the people that we used to have and how important all of it is. I know none of this has been easy, and, well, I reached out to your brother.”

“You talked to Gideon?” Sam asked, and suddenly the walls didn’t seem so thick. It was like his brother was emitting an aura that reached through the bricks.

“It was discreet, I promise.”

“I know…” Sam trailed off. He was torn between examining all the reasons this was a bad idea, and the simple truth of just wanting to see Gideon. It had been actual years since the last time he had. “I’ll meet you at the rendezvous point,” he told Steve. It was only for an afternoon, he reminded himself. Just enough time to catch up and needle his little brother as much as possible.

“You don’t have to.” Steve looked sad and slightly defeated. He was telling Sam he could leave, for good, if he wanted.

That wasn’t an option for Sam. “I will be, though.”

Steve nodded. “I know.” He disappeared in the crowd and Sam looked at the bar door. Maybe he shouldn’t go, maybe it would be too hard to return to the lonely life the four of them had been living.

But there was a mental pull just from the presence of his brother and he opened the door anyway. It was dark and loud, but he saw Gideon on the far side nursing a coke and reading a travel guide. Sam was struck by how much older he looked, but in his mind his brother should still be watching Sesame Street and not sitting in a bar.

Gideon turned, saw him, and said, “Oh, look. It’s the ugliest man I know.”

Sam smiled so big that his cheeks hurt. “That’s because you haven’t looked in a mirror for the last ten years.”

“My fiancée says otherwise.”

“Then she must be--” Sam began to say on instinct, and then the weight of those words settled in. “Wait? You got engaged?”

“Denise said yes. No idea why--”

Sam cut him off with a hug. “She deserves so much better,” he said, and meant none of it.

“I know,” Gideon responded, but just held him closer.

“I miss you.”

“Miss you too.” Gideon pushed away with his hands on Sam’s shoulders. “Everyone is so proud. We saw what you did in Myanmar.”

“You aren’t supposed to know…”

Gideon’s voice dropped so the rest of the bar couldn’t hear him. “Oh, come on, Sam. There was clearly a guy with bird wings. What idiot, besides you, would wear bird wings?”

Sam laughed and dropped his head. “You better not have a bachelor party without me,” he said to change the subject. He didn't want to focus on the missions right now. It felt good just being with his brother, but he knew later he could return to the Quinjet and keep making Gideon proud.

 

* * *

 

**Day 721**

Sam strapped himself into the Falcon gear and tested each of the clasps, one by one, and at the side of him Natasha slipped on her vest. Out of the corner of their eyes, they were both watching the video feed at the front of the Quinjet.

Aliens. In New York. _Again_. The feed jumped from images of people running frantically on the city streets to a donut shaped spaceship in the sky before settling on the confrontation with the bad guys. The quality wasn’t that great, but the Iron Man armor was iconic enough that Sam could pick it out anywhere, and next to Tony stood figures Sam hadn't seen before. The fight looked brutal. Sam’s eyes flicked from the screen to Steve. He was already suited up and had moved on to preparing the Quinjet for take off.

“It’d be really nice if Wanda was here right now,” Nat mumbled.

Sam agreed. “You paged her?” he asked.

“I’ve _been_ paging her.” She placed the two fighting sticks on her back with a flourish and stood up straight.

“We don’t have time to wait,” Steve announced, and he was still running around the Quinjet, even if every two seconds he would look back up at the screen. The donut-ship was leaving now and a familiar red and gold blur was following. Before, whenever anything happened around the world, they stayed in their lane and out of the hairs of the accords and the real Avengers. But apparently, aliens were all it took to break that unspoken agreement. “We need to get in the air, now--”

Steve stopped speaking abruptly and opened a pocket on his belt. Sam couldn’t have been more than ten feet away, but he could barely hear the sharp, obnoxious sound of a cell phone ringtone.

 _This is bad_ , he thought. If Tony was calling, after all this time, than it was worse than just aliens.

Steve picked up. Natasha and Sam went still.

“Tony,” Steve said, like he had to force the air out of his mouth. _Breathe_ , Sam thought, and hoped the intention made its way to his friend. They were both watching him, ready to respond in whatever way they were needed. Because if this was a _real, actual_ , call to assemble, they were ready. They had been waiting. “Bruce? Is that really you?” Steve bit his lip and looked up at the screen as if he could see proof in the grainy phone videos.

Nat fidgeted beside him. On the screens the space ship left earth, and with it, Tony in his armor.

Steve nodded at whatever he was listening to and hung up the phone with a snap, returning it back to its rightful place on his belt. “Bruce is back,” he told Natasha more than Sam. He pressed a button on the console to shut off the feed and the Quinjet began to lift off the ground. “We need to find Vision--”

“--Wanda,” Sam interjected.

“Yeah, and then…we do what we do best.” It wasn’t Steve’s best speech--he was distracted, his fingers twitching on his belt and as he talked it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself--yet, he was still a formidable presence. “We fight, because this? This situation? This is bad as it gets.”

Nat nodded beside him. Even though she was a pro at this, Sam didn't miss the tightness in her brow or the subtle shift in her shoulders. Two years ago, Sam wouldn't have known it was possible, but today he was glad he wasn't the only one who was terrified.  

But Steve was right. This _was_ what they did best.

Sam put on his game face and prepared himself to beat the bad guys.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr post](https://msermesth.tumblr.com/post/174548473959/the-road-warriors)


End file.
